The Sad Variety

by Nicholas Blake

  Elena’s face, white and hard as marble, gave no hint of her feelings.

  ‘We made a bargain,’ she said quietly. ‘In return for my help, you were going to give me Ivan and get us back safely to our country. I see I was a fool to trust a man like you.’ She added two words in Hungarian that brought sparks of fury into Petrov’s eyes.

  ‘I had every intention of keeping the bargain,’ he angrily protested.

  ‘But the bargain was not kept. Why should I believe this story of yours? You are incapable of the truth. You have told so many lies in your life that you have forgotten what truth is. I pity you.’

  ‘And what about the lies you told your husband? You to talk about lying—a woman who could betray her husband and his little girl!’

  ‘I am not proud of it.’ Elena’s voice became broken and appealing. ‘I have nothing left to live for. That is why I offer you a bargain. Let Lucy go, and you can do whatever you like with me. Kill me, make me your mistress, anything.’

  ‘Well, well, well. Why should I want a stringy, dried-up old bitch like you for a mistress?’

  ‘Perhaps not. But you love killing, don’t you? Don’t you, Petrov? Maybe you’ve never killed a woman before. You’d find it most enjoyable. And you’d be in no danger from me any more.’

  This statement, made in Elena’s most thrilling, intense voice, disconcerted Petrov: it turned their encounter into a kind of fantasy he could not cope with. Certainly this woman must be disposed of; but that she should encourage him to do it made him feel, for a moment, profoundly uneasy. His immediate reaction was to think she must have some card in her hand ready to trump him. He moved to the window, pushing her aside: no, the farm away to his right seemed quiet as ever.

  Annie came in with a tray of drinks. Brandy, soda, a glass of lemonade. A silent look passed between them. Annie nodded slightly, reassuring Petrov that the lemonade and one of the brandies were doped. ‘Where’s Paul?’ she asked.

  ‘Waiting outside.’

  Petrov handed Elena the brandy glass Annie indicated. His mind was working fast again, its animal cunning restored. Let her drink the doped brandy. They’d have to make room for her in the car. She’d asked him to kill her. Very well, she too should die the death he had planned for Paul and Lucy.

  ‘Cheers,’ he said, raising his glass. ‘Come on, Mrs Wragby, drink up: you must be cold, and we’re in a hurry.’

  ‘I do not drink with pigs. I offered you a bargain. Do you accept it?’

  Petrov glared at her. ‘Fetch the child,’ he commanded Annie. …

  The armed police from the stranded cars had arrived in Eggarswell five minutes before. Charlie Deacon, whom Sparkes had told to wait for them, sent two on a detour to approach Smugglers’ Cottage from the back and prevent any escape that way. The rest he had led up the hillside to the right of the track, keeping the farmhouse between them and the cottage—six armed men panting after their mile run, and himself. From boyhood escapades, he remembered every fold in the ground, every gap in a hedge. Silently they filed through the farm’s paddock gate and in at a side door.

  ‘The Super’s upstairs,’ said Mr Thwaite. ‘I’ll take you.’

  ‘All present and correct, sir,’ said Charlie. ‘I’ve got two of them working their way round to the back. They should be in position in three or four minutes.’

  ‘Good lad. I want the two best shots up here with the rifles. Halford and Bright. If the big chap tries to get away, they’re to nail him.’

  Charlie ran down and fetched the two men upstairs.

  ‘Hallo,’ said Sparkes, still peering through the window. ‘There’s a chap coming out of the garage. That’s the other one, eh? Wambling about a bit.’

  The figure of Paul Cunningham disappeared through the front door.

  ‘Right,’ said Sparkes. ‘The rest will come with me.’ He ran downstairs, Nigel and Charlie following. ‘We’re going to move in,’ he told the four men. ‘Hope Charlie’s lads are in position. Any of you want a medal?’

  The policemen grinned uncertainly.

  ‘You may get one today. There’s a man in the cottage who’s a killer. There may be others. We’ve got to jump them before he harms the little girl. The cottage has no windows at this end. So unless someone’s getting a crick in his neck watching sideways out of a front window, they won’t see us till we’re close. We’re going to move out of the farmyard, cross the track, walk up along the grass on its left-hand side. That way, we’ll soon have the garage between us and the cottage. When we get there, if we get there, we can have a cosy chat about the next move. And now put these on.’

  Sparkes handed out four milkmen’s overalls he had borrowed from Mr Thwaite. ‘Won’t catch the eye so much in those against the snow. Keep your weapons hidden underneath them.’ He stood back to admire the effect. ‘Lumme, what a shower you look! They’ll take you for a deputation of cricket umpires.’

  The men laughed. Charlie protested:

  ‘What about me, sir?’

  ‘You can set up a first-aid post here, Sergeant.’

  The men laughed again.

  ‘Haven’t you got a white coat yourself, sir?’

  ‘Don’t fuss, Charlie boy. I’m going to lead this shower from behind. Off we go.’

  Annie Stott pushed Lucy into the room. For a few moments Elena failed to recognise her, and Lucy didn’t see Elena, sitting with her back to the window through which the snow-glare dazzled the child.

  ‘Hallo, darling,’ said Elena gently. ‘What have they done to you?’

  Lucy’s eyes widened. Then she ran into Elena’s arms.

  ‘I knew you’d find me! Have you come to ransom me? Where’s Papa?’

  ‘He’s in hospital. Don’t worry, he had an accident, but he’ll soon be well again. He’s sorry he couldn’t come with me.’

  ‘When he’s well, we can all go tobogganing, can’t we?’

  ‘Yes, darling,’ said Elena, wincing.

  ‘Will my hair grow again?’

  ‘Of course it will. And go back to its natural colour.’

  Lucy beamed at her. ‘You’re a super mother, Elena.’

  Elena hid her face a moment in the child’s shoulder. Oh God, why don’t they come? I can’t keep this up any longer.

  Lucy turned in her arms. ‘Who’s that man?’

  ‘Don’t point, darling. He’s a friend of this lady here.’

  ‘Aunt Annie’s friend. She said he was coming. But I don’t understand——’

  ‘So this is Lucy,’ said Petrov, coming over and putting his hand on the back of her thin neck. ‘A pretty little girl. Well, Lucy, we’re all leaving now. Here’s a nice glass of lemonade. Drink it up quickly, and we’ll start.’

  Lucy took the glass, remembering what Annie had told her. Annie sat tense, hardly daring to breathe. She felt confused and helpless: she could not think what Petrov had in mind—did he intend to take Mrs Wragby to the same death as he’d planned for Paul and Lucy, or was he going to accept her bargain? A sense of failure and foreboding overcame Annie: the mission she had so proudly accepted and so efficiently carried out was lost in a fog of unreality, which had been thickening during the last few days, blotting out any possible shape of the future.

  She saw Lucy pretending to sip the drink, wandering across the room towards a potted plant in one corner. She must distract Petrov while Lucy poured it away. For that plucky kid to die now would be a pointless waste, serving no purpose but Petrov’s ruling passion. Annie got to her feet, moving to put herself between Petrov and Lucy. Then she stopped, thinking it might be better if Petrov forced the child to drink—better if she were asleep when Petrov killed her.

  Elena Wragby sat silent, passive, withdrawn: as though, Annie thought, she was praying or waiting for something—an issue which was now taken out of her hands.

  ‘Haven’t you finished that lemonade yet?’ barked Petrov, moving over to the child.

  The door flew open and Paul Cunningham staggered in. He had got out of the car a
few minutes before. Though the farm buildings blocked out from the cottage any view of men approaching it up the fields from Eggarswell, the garage, thirty yards to the right of the cottage, gave a different angle of vision. Glancing through the garage window, Paul noticed the tail-end of the file of policemen moving into the farm paddock: their caps and the muzzles of rifles showed above the hedge.

  For a minute or two, Paul was paralysed with despair and indecision. This was the end of everything. Disgrace, long imprisonment. It could be less long if he went straight over to the farm and told the police everything. But Petrov might see him walking away; and he feared Petrov far more than the police. Feared him, hated him, but in a perverse way felt bound to him, as an adolescent is bound to a harsh father infinitely stronger and more resourceful than himself. Petrov’s contempt for him rankled, like the pain of his cheekbone. The contempt would change to gratitude, admiration even, if he stood by Petrov, went in and told him what he’d seen, like a loyal son. Perhaps Petrov, with his ruthless cunning, could even now fight his way out of the trap and take Paul with him. He started the engine, then hurried towards the cottage, staggering in the snow.

  ‘I told you to stay in the car,’ Petrov shouted.

  ‘Police! I saw them going into the farm. The engine’s running. They’ve got guns,’ Paul gasped.

  Petrov swung round on Elena, looming above her like a cliff about to fall. ‘You treacherous bitch!’ He drew the revolver from his overcoat pocket and clamped a hand on Lucy’s neck. He would run to the garage, holding the child as a shield between him and the armed police, and make a break for it.

  ‘Don’t you touch the child!’ Elena leapt to her feet, but he thrust her back on to the window-seat.

  ‘Back door,’ said Paul. ‘They’ll have the front covered.’

  Elena made another rush at him, but he swung Lucy between them. ‘Get out of my way, or I’ll shoot you both.’

  He backed into the passage, through the scullery, and with the hand that held the gun felt for the door-knob behind him. Elena was after him like a tigress. As he pulled the back door open, she snatched Lucy from him. ‘Run!’ she cried. She was between Lucy now and Petrov, who stood on the threshold.

  Petrov shot her in the body. With her last strength she slammed the door in his face and locked him out.

  Nigel, from the bedroom window of the farmhouse, heard the shot and went pelting downstairs, out into the yard. The tractor was there, its engine turning, Jim in the iron saddle. ‘Wait there!’ Nigel shouted, and ran to peer over the low hedge between farmyard and track. Sparkes and his file of men had only just gone out: they were moving along the grass verge to the left of the track. Charlie’s two men were stumbling down the hillside at the back of the cottage, still fifty yards away from it.

  Petrov slunk along the deep passage behind the cottage, invisible to them, reached the garage and slipped inside before the riflemen in the farmhouse could fire. Sparkes, leading his men from in front, broke into a run; but he was still twenty yards from the garage door when the car shot out of it, skidded on to the track and accelerated.

  Sparkes’s detachment desperately tried to get out the weapons they were carrying under their milkmen’s overcoats, but while they were still fumbling, Petrov was almost past. Sparkes leapt at the running board, and was flung back sprawling on to the snow. His men began to fire at the receding car, and one of the farmhouse riflemen shattered its windscreen. But the driver was apparently unhurt.

  Nigel had seen the car plunge out of the garage. He gesticulated and yelled to Jim, ‘Drive out! Block the track!’

  Jim was not in time to do that, for the tractor stalled at the first, over-excited acceleration. But he started it again instantly, and began trundling out of the farmyard towards the track. He could hear the crack of rifle-shots. From his high seat he saw over the hedge the roof of a car speeding downhill, ten yards away. He accelerated. The tractor hit the car amidships, flung it on its side over the verge of the track, and continuing its impetus struck the shattered car again. The front wheels mounted. The tractor came to a stop, like a great blue and red heraldic beast rampant over its prey.

  ‘Rammed the bugger,’ Jim remarked to himself with satisfaction. It was worth the pain of the sprained wrist and the bruises he had received from the collision, desperately gripping the wheel so as not to be flung out of his seat.

  Sparkes and Nigel, running up now, saw a terrible thing. With the huge weight of the tractor recumbent upon it, the body of the car, already weakened by the first impact, began to cave in, slowly crushing the driver. Through the torn metal and shattered glass they saw Petrov’s excruciated face and heard him screaming, like an animal trapped.

  There was nothing they could do. The tractor was immovably couched upon the wreckage beneath.

  A man came running back from the cottage. ‘Kid’s all right, sir. Mrs Wragby’s dead. She tried to stop him taking the kid away, and he shot her. We’ve got two others under guard.’

  ‘Thank God for that,’ came Clare’s voice from behind them. She had walked up the track, unnoticed in the confusion. If Petrov had got away, thought Nigel, he might well have run her down in his berserk career.

  ‘Go to Lucy!’ he said.

  Petrov had stopped screaming at last. It seemed to leave a hole in the air. Everything was hushed again, silent as the expanses of snow that stretched into the distance all round. Gradually this silence filled up the jagged hole left by Petrov’s screaming.

  From the cottage, as Clare approached it, a man and a woman emerged, handcuffed, policemen on either side. Their faces were drained of all emotion. They moved like puppets.

  In the sitting-room a sergeant had Lucy on his lap, trying to comfort her. Men were coming from the farm with a hurdle on which to carry Elena’s body away.

  When she saw Clare, Lucy began to cry again. Clare took her from the sergeant.

  ‘He tried to shoot me,’ Lucy sobbed.

  That’s all over, darling. You’re quite safe now. Nigel and I are taking you back to your papa. He’ll be so proud of you—to hear what a brave girl you’ve been. It was a marvellous idea, writing that story about Cinders and making a dart with the paper.’

  ‘Well, I thought it was rather a super idea myself; but I never thought you’d get the letter.’ Lucy gave only a stifled sob now.

  ‘We did. I’ll tell you how, later. There’s a nice sergeant called Charlie who used to live in the village, and he recognised this house from your description. So we all piled into cars and drove here at blinding speed, through drifts and fields and farmyards——’

  ‘You didn’t!’ Lucy’s eyes began to shine.

  ‘We did. Two fields and one farmyard anyway. Scattering ducks and hens and pigs before us. It was a great lark.’

  ‘And Elena came with you?’

  ‘Yes. She was the one who really rescued you.’

  Lucy fell silent for a moment, puzzling out something in her mind. Two men passed the window, but the body they carried on a hurdle was invisible below the level of the sill.

  ‘Were they really spies?’ asked Lucy.

  ‘Oh yes. They kidnapped you: they wanted to exchange you for an important scientific secret your father has.’

  ‘I see. But he didn’t give them the secret.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That big man—he was the chief spy?’

  ‘Yes. Your papa had a fight with him. That’s why he’s in hospital. He put up a splendid fight, but Petrov was much stronger.’

  ‘Poor Papa.’

  Clare judged it was now the right moment. ‘You’ll have to be extra nice and loving with him for a bit.’

  ‘And Elena too.’

  ‘You’ll have to make up for Elena, darling.’

  Lucy took Clare’s hand, bracing herself. ‘You mean she’s dead?’

  ‘Yes. Petrov shot her. She died saving you.’ Clare went on quickly, ‘He would have tried to take you away with him, but Elena stopped him. She——’

/>   ‘I know. She snatched me from him and told me to run, and I ran into this room. There was an awful bang.’ Lucy gulped.

  ‘Elena was a real heroine. Never forget that. She wasn’t sorry to die, because she knew you were safe.’

  Lucy was quiet, digesting this. Then she trembled. ‘He won’t be coming back?’

  ‘Petrov? No fear! He was trying to escape in the car, and your Jim drove into it with his tractor. There was quite a battle before that. I expect you heard the rifle-shots.’

  ‘Yes, I did … You mean, Jim killed him?’

  ‘Yes. The tractor squashed the car flat, with Petrov inside it.’

  ‘Good,’ said Lucy, her grey eyes sparkling. ‘Sardined him.’

  ‘Sardined him is right.’ Clare was relieved that her instinct had been correct. Lucy was only a child, with a child’s ignorant and wholesome delight in gory detail. Soon, with any luck, the last week would seem no more than a fairy-tale to her—a tale in which the ogre came to a sticky and satisfying end.

  ‘Can we go and see Papa soon?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘Let’s go now.’

  THE END

  MORE FROM VINTAGE CLASSIC CRIME

  MARGERY ALLINGHAM

  Mystery Mile

  Police at the Funeral

  Sweet Danger

  Flowers for the Judge

  The Case of the Late Pig

  Dancers in Mourning

  The Fashion in Shrouds

  Traitor’s Purse

  Coroner’s Pidgin

  More Work for the Undertaker

  The Tiger in the Smoke

  The Beckoning Lady

  Hide My Eyes

  The China Governess

  The Mind Readers

  Cargo of Eagles

  E.F. BENSON

  The Blotting Book

  The Luck of the Vails

  NICHOLAS BLAKE

  A Question of Proof

  Thou Shell of Death

  There’s Trouble Brewing

  The Beast must Die